Teenage Hell

The last thing a network architect thinks about when they are designing a network is future expansion for the network printing needs the company will be experiencing as they grow. So that means that as a company expands it is up to the IT department to find a network printer home for every printer that is installed as the company grows. In some cases finding a network printer home is not really that big of a deal as most locations seem to open themselves up as a network printer home.

Other locations that need a network printer home do not allow themselves to be as accessible as other locations. When you are looking for a network printer home for a new network printer there are a few things you have to look for and some things you should look for. Remember that if you are looking for a network printer home you should always try and keep the area accessible to everyone that will be using the printer you will be installing.

The first main requirement of a new network printer home is that a network drop be nearby so that connection to the network is simple and without any added construction. Most companies will not authorize the building of a completely new drop site just for a printer so be certain that you are picking a network printer home that is near a network connection or that you can install a wireless printer into a spot that has a clear sight of the nearest wireless access point.

Traffic Control Is Important

Not only is it important to be sure that the new network printer home is in an area that everyone has easy access to but it should also be in an area that can accommodate the new traffic that will result from a printer being in that location. It sounds a little too detail oriented but if you do not plan the basic logistics from the start then you are bound to have problems in the future. Increased traffic in some areas of the office may not allow other people to do their jobs properly so be certain to always take these sorts of things into account when choosing a network printer home.

Installing a new network printer can be a big deal especially if you are using it to relieve printing congestion to a popular printer on the network that is getting overworked. When you are choosing a network printer home be sure you take as many details into account as possible and try and put your new printer in an area that will not interfere with the jobs that other people are trying to do.

At its very core the concept behind a wireless network printer should be a great idea. The idea that your network printer home can be anywhere within sight of a wireless access point should bring smiles of joy to any IT administrator. However a wireless network printer is only as strong as the wireless network it is on and with there still being major issues with implementing an effective wireless network the idea of the worry free wireless network printer is probably still several months, maybe years, away from being a reality.

A wireless network is still considered a luxury by most corporate standards and the advances in some areas are a little slow. One primary concern with a wireless network is consistency of quality. If you ever talk to someone that has a wireless network at their job there is a good chance that they will have horror stories of constantly lost connections and data lost to some vast wasteland that the wireless network seems to have created.

So many things affect a wireless network connection that keeping a signal strong and reliable is a large concern. Now imagine using a wireless network printer and consistently losing large and important print jobs in this kind of environment.

Security is another huge concern of a wireless network and most IT administrators will work diligently trying to secure the network from outside hackers. The problem with this is that wireless network printer technology has not advanced very far in the security area and one of the weakest points in any wireless network is still the wireless network printer. Keeping unwanted people out of a corporate network is a very big deal and as long as the wireless network printer is seen as a weak point of the network there will be a problem convincing people to use the wireless network.

Set And Reset

Because of their inherent instability the wireless network printer can have a tendency to reset itself on the network from time to time and this can cause a lot of problems for users and IT administrators. When any device resets on a wireless network that means that it drops the connection and the re-establishes that connection afterwards. Print jobs get lost, people get frustrated, and more fuel is added to the fire that brews against the wireless network printer.

A wireless network is still seen as a potential risk for many people and until the technology is stabilized it will be some time before corporate America is able to connect to their network from anywhere in the building.

When it comes to a network ready printer there are some things that you will need to add or may find different from a standard printer. First of all it is very desirable that your network ready printer be a laser printer. Inkjet printers simply cannot handle the volume and even if you are going to use a device called a print server you would still not get the performance you need from an inkjet printer. A print server is a device that allows you to connect a printer that is not a network ready printer to a computer network.

But, as was mentioned, a network ready printer that is a laser printer is preferred for your network. You can use any manufacturer if you do not have a preference. In some cases it may be easier to use a network ready printer made by Lexmark or Hewlett Packard because those are the two top network ready printer manufacturers and their drivers a very standard with most networking software. The more universally compatible your network ready printer the easier it is going to be for you to connect it to your network and get your network clients to be able to recognize it.

A network ready printer has more memory than a standard printer. You will be spooling many print jobs at the same time with a network ready printer so in order to prevent the printer from getting overwhelmed you would add more memory. In most cases manufacturers offer a model of laser printer with a network ready sub-model to it which would be a model that can take more memory than the standard printer. Always load up your network ready printer with as much memory as possible to allow smoother usage and prevent long waits by your users.

The Network Connection And The Little Things

Whether you are using a standard network ready printer or a wireless network printer you want to be certain that the network connection is included in the printer before you buy it. Some companies offer it as standard on the network model of their printers but it is always a good idea to be completely certain before you commit to buying a very expensive printer.

Sometimes people leave out little details in their network ready printer that can prove to be important latter on. For example, most network models of printers have options to add more paper trays and many people choose not to do this. But when you have a line of angry people at the printer because the printer keeps running out of paper you soon come to appreciate even the smallest details about network printing.

For many people the idea of printer sharing is a seamless process whereby they send a print job to the printer they are assigned to and the printer spews out the job as commanded. Some people are interested in how printer sharing is accomplished and those are the people that will usually call the IT department and ask how printer sharing works. Let’s save you the phone call, allow IT to do their job, and explain in a very quick nutshell how printer sharing works and how your print job gets from your desk to your assigned printer.

The first thing IT has to do is determine how to assign the network ready printers they will be installing. In most cases each department will get their own printer or, if the departments are small enough, then a printer will get shared among the departments. Once the printer details are determined each printer location is given a letter or a name.

Some companies prefer letters because they are easier to deal with and some prefer names because they offer more detail and make programming the network a little easier. Whatever the choice the designation of the printer sharing is what is used to create the printer path on the network. So let us say that the IT department has decided to call the printer you will use sales. That is how they will address it when they set up the printer sharing on the network.

Hooking It Up And Away We Go

The next step is to run a network cable to the designated printer sharing location and then set up the printer in that location. Since the printers today can come network ready it will already have an Ethernet card in it that your IT people can plug in to. One the printer is plugged in and set up the next thing to do is load the drivers on the server so that the network can see and use the printer. Each workstation will also be loaded with drivers so that they can connect to the printer. Once all of that is done the printer sharing network is almost done.

The last step is to do what is called pointing your computer at the printer. When IT sets up your computer to use the sales printer it will go into the printer setup portion of Windows, or whatever operating system you are using, and choose the sales printer as your printer sharing default printer. Once that is done you are all set to print.

The idea of creating a corporate network within your company’s buildings has come a long way in the last few years and so has the idea of printer sharing. When computer networks were first being installed decades ago everyone was connected using physical wire. Within the various open floors of a building there were, and in many cases still are, these poles that seem to appear for no reason from the ceiling to the floor.

Those poles are what are called network drops and within those poles are the network wiring that you company uses to create its computer network. In the computer room, usually under the floor, there is a whole mess of computer cables that run from various servers and other network devices out to the rest of the company. They get to the rest of the company by running wires through the drop ceiling in your office and then down the network drop poles and out to the various users.

When new networking needs to be done they will usually run cabling around and over the existing cabling without removing it. This, as you can imagine, creates an unbelievable mess of computer network cables. It is this mess that is starting to push the wireless network to the forefront of corporate computing.

There are a lot of concerns with a wireless network and chief among them are security and reliability. Obviously if the chief concern of something is security and reliability then it will be difficult to get the corporate world to adopt it. But wireless networking does offer some very important perks. For example the ability to use a wireless printer on a network instead of hardwiring a printer.

Location, Location, Location

One of the biggest headaches for any corporate network administrator is placing peripherals like printers for the company to use. A wireless printer will allow corporate network administrators to place printers anywhere they like. A wireless printer can increase connectivity and a wireless printer can increase productivity. You can place a wireless printer anywhere it has a clear view of a wireless access point and a wireless printer can be recognized instantly by anyone on the network.

Of course the idea of the wireless printer still has the same drawbacks and wireless networking in general does but if the wireless printer makes printing easier for an entire company then imagine how much easier everything else could be if the whole network was wireless.

When you spend some time talking to your company’s IT department you begin to realize just how difficult it can be when you are in charge of a company’s computer needs. Some requests are realistic like the need for more memory to run a certain corporate application. Some requests border on the insane like the need for a 19 inch flat screen monitor because that is how CNN.com looks best.

In an environment where a department is forced to balance the rational with the ridiculous there is always the search for ways to make everything work better and to make the processes easier to administer. For example, in an area where there are no physical network connections it makes sense to implement a wireless printer so that everyone has the ability to print documents.

But it would be incredibly impractical to assume that everyone in the company would get their own personal printer at their desk and that is why the network printer was created. A network printer is a printer that is connected to the company network which allows it to be accessed by everyone on a particular network segment. If your company is a larger company then there is usually more than one network printer and in that case each network printer is usually set up to serve a particular department. For smaller companies one network printer will usually suffice.

In most cases a network printer is a larger laser printer with a fast network connection and a larger amount of memory than the standard printer would have. In some cases the network printer would need to have postscript added to it in order for it to be able to spool various printing jobs. Either way the network printer makes life a lot easier for the IT department even though the network printer is notorious for making life miserable for everyone else.

The Only Real Drawback

There is one administrative drawback to a network printer and that is when the printer is down then more than one person cannot access it. That means that one down printer can generate potentially dozens of frantic phone calls to IT screaming that the printer is, indeed, down. But with all of the administrative problems that a network printer solves this one little drawback is usually dealt with by the IT department in a brisk and efficient way. When the printer goes down they don’t answer the phone while they are fixing the printer. You can get everyone to print from the same network printer but that does not mean you can always get them to get along.

If you have begun your search for a color printer for your desktop or laptop, you will, before too long have surely realized that there are many varieties on offer and this means that you will really need to look high and low before you would be able to find a color printer to suit your needs. In fact, the present age of printer technology can be considered as a golden age with prices on the affordable side and quality on the higher side.

Whet Your Curiosity

If you expend a bit of effort and take time to improve your knowledge about color printers, you would not fail to have come across a digital color printer. However, learning that there is a digital color printer that is different to inkjet and laser color printers is something that will whet your curiosity to know more about this particular kind of color printer.

The first thing that will strike you about a digital color printer is the high resolution that is included in every image that it outputs. With extremely high quality resolutions it is possible for a digital color printer to create dots so tiny that they are only visible through a magnifying glass. No doubt, a resolution of six hundred dots per inch qualifies a color printer as being a photo quality printer, but when you look at the greater number of dots per inch that a digital color printer can output, you would really notice a sea change in quality and perhaps start to consider only this kind of printer to be a true photo quality printer.

What’s more, by using high quality paper you will get even more joy from using a digital color printer and in fact, a digital color printer actually uses combinations ranging from three to four to even six colors to print an image (full color) which is in stark contrast to what ink-jet printers do - which is to dispense colors individually.

If you happen to be running a small business and you are also using wireless connections, you would do well to hook up a wireless network printer in your office because in this way you can give your small business a much needed shot in the arm by letting everyone in your office make use of your printer.

A digital color printer is known to use three primary colors which are yellow, magenta and cyan and these basic colors are then mixed to produce even more appealing prints. However, it is normal that a digital color printer uses four main colors instead of three and these are black, yellow, magenta and cyan. With these four colors it is able to recreate the entire spectrum of colors and tones that you notice when shooting a picture.

There are many excellent color printers available today and though many of them cost a fair amount of money, there are some that can be purchased for fewer than six hundred dollars. Before you actually spend even a dollar on your color printer, you should first of all be sure in your mind about what you want. Choosing the best color printer can be subjective and can depend on your own expectations and also the kind of resolution that a color printer is able to provide.

Print In Bulk

Some people would even consider a best color printer to be one that can print in bulk while others would consider a particular color printer to be the best if it is able to provide outstanding color and high resolution images. Still others would consider a best color printer to be one that is the most affordable.

There are many economical factors to be considered when deciding on which the best color printer is, and for those who cannot afford to shell out more than seven hundred dollars, a best color printer for them could well be the Lexmark X520 which for the price is worth every last cent that you will be paying. It is also a laser, holistic as well as all in one color printer which can double up as a scanner and fax machine and it can also send emails and even copy documents.

However, for those who cannot afford to pay even six hundred dollars, the best color printer for them would be the Samsung CLP – 300N that is available at an amazingly affordable three hundred dollars.

Besides the price factor, a best color printer can also be something that is very compact in design and which also does not weight too much, and if it can also boast of networking capabilities, you would then be able to hook it up to your home/office network and get maximum throughputs from it believing that there is no other color printer better than this one.

Another contender for best color printer is the Ricoh Aficio SP C210 which for a laser color printer is quite an outstanding item that boasts of a good price and it has many endearing features as well. It can print in black and white at a good pace and it can also print color images at a pretty rapid rate as well. However, it is quite bulky and it weighs an awful lot. Still, it does give you a chance to print on large sized paper and its color output is very good for the price that you are paying.

If you have spend some time in researching color printers, you may have also come across a digital color printer that is quite an amazing item of equipment that bears taking a closer look at. Depending on your budget and requirements, there are many very handy color printers that you will need to consider individually before you are able to conclude which among the best color printer is.

With so many different color printer manufacturers manufacturing new and improved color inkjet printers today, it has become rather difficult keeping track of all the different types of color inkjet printers that are being sold in the market today. And, with stiff competition coming in from color laser printers, you would have your work cut out for you deciding which the best option for your needs is.

There are of course, also several different types of color printer inks to choose from including those that will work with three color, four color as well as photo printing printers. The most popular color inkjet printer is the four color one and these types of printers use a pair of ink cartridges with one containing black ink while the other one contains colored ink. Before choosing your color inkjet printer it would make sense to check out the type of color printer ink that it uses with two options being using dye-based and pigment-based inks.

Best Quality Color

If you need to get best quality of color, you should veer towards using dye-based color printer inks as these types of inks have a range of colors, but suffer from being poor as far as fade resistance goes, and they are also not water resistant either. In addition, these color printer inks are also very slow to dry and so, you have to factor in these characteristics before opting for dye-bases color printer inks.

If you don’t mind paying a little bit extra, you should choose to buy pigment-based color printer inks which though they do not provide as good colors as the dye-based inks, will nevertheless not bleed and they also dry up in a reasonable time, and are fade resistant as well as water resistant.

The Brother MFC 210C color inkjet printer is an excellent option in color inkjet printers even if it is an all in one color printer that prints scans, copies and faxes. It can provide excellent printing speeds and it is able to accommodate different widths and lengths up to a maximum of 8.5 inches and 14 inches respectively, and it is certainly a contender for best color printer.

The main consideration with regard to using color printer ink is that you must not buy your ink from dubious printer ink manufacturers such as third party vendors because counterfeit color printer ink will first of all not provide good quality prints and secondly, it can ruin your expensive color inkjet printer.

There are different types of color inkjet printers to choose from with each different brand and model having been designed to work with different types of color inkjet inks. So, before you buy your color inkjet printer, makes sure that you are aware of the different types of cartridges being used, because there is a choice between an inkjet printer cartridge that is either a single cartridge or a multiple cartridge system.

If you opt for the single cartridge color system, there is just one lone cartridge that holds all of the different colors for that particular color inkjet printer. On the other hand, the multiple cartridge system works on the principle that there is more than one cartridge used to contain different colors.

Different Types Of Inks

You will also need to decide whether the ink that you are going to use in your color inkjet printer is to be pigment based or dye-based. The latter type of inks can provide a whole range of colors though the colors produced are not very fade resistant and they are also not very water resistant. On the other hand, dye-based inks will dry very slowly and here the pigment based inks are often found to be more suitable.

You need to make a call whether to choose dye-based (superior color) or pigment based (inferior color) for your color inkjet printer with the latter being costlier though it will have better water resistance and fade resistance while the dye-based inks are cheaper but do fade and are not very water resistant.

There no doubts the fact that a good color inkjet printer must output excellent color prints though at the same time it should also be very fade resistant and have good water resistance as well. Another feature worth considering in such kinds of inkjet printers is that the ink must not dry up too soon after printing and in fact should ensure that the print quality always looks sharp.

Today, there are many manufacturers of color inkjet printers with some being dedicated printers while there are also third-party vendors and there is also great variety in color inkjet printer ink types with different ink types working well with certain brands and not with others.

In case you need to print text and also get some graphics and even a couple of photographs, an excellent color inkjet printer worth considering is the Pixma iP4500 that provides excellent quality of print and it also provides automatic duplexing or printing on each side of a page, and in addition, it also allows you to do DVD/CD printing.

With many third party vendors also throwing their ring in the hat, before buying your color inkjet printer you need to be careful that the color printer ink that you use is compatible with your color inkjet printer and you must also not fall into the trap of buying counterfeit or spurious inks which will ruin the color inkjet printer and not do any good at all.